Although the role of immigration in the creation of the African-American demographic has never been truly appreciated, it is now important to revisit it given the emerging trend of “reverse migration” engineered by the Trump administration.
Although the initial waves of movement of people of colour from Africa to the US was involuntary to the extent that it was driven by the vicissitudes of slavery, the need for labour that drove this wave persisted even after emancipation, when a monetary value was assigned to the labour of African Americans under capitalism.
Over the years, America – styling itself as the land of opportunity – has engaged in an annual ritual of encouraging immigration from Africa and other regions through what has come to be known as the DV Lottery or the “Green Card”.
Until president Trump was sworn in, there was a tacit acknowledgement that people of colour, including Africans, were welcome in the US as part of its agenda to drive diversity and inclusion.
With the coming of Trump, however, America has taken a drastic and abrupt u-turn on this policy, triggering a wave of forced deportation of people of colour, including Hispanics who have migrated in large numbers, albeit illegally, into the US.
The point that is worth making, however, is that immigration of African peoples over the centuries is what has created the ever-changing tapestry of people of colour that we identify as African-American.
True, there are those who, by virtue of birth and history, feel that they are more African-American than the Johnnie-come-latelys. However, it is difficult to run away from the reality that African who emigrate to the US and become its citizens are also African-Americans.
Indeed, some of them have sought, and secured, political office, with Momanyi Hintsley being one of the latest and best examples. That act of political inclusion has its root in emigration and this makes it all the more important to revisit and amplify the nexus between emigration and the change face of Black History.
In the past, this celebration of February as the ‘Black History’ month was confined to the demographic that traced its origin to the cotton plantations of the South and which identified with heroes like George Washington Curver and Booker T. Washington or heroines like Harriet Tubman and my favourite, Zora Neale Hurston.
However, that purity has been melting into the cultural pot that has brought other Africans and Caribbeans into the mix. Nowhere was this more evident that in the persona of former Vice President Kamala Harris, who has both African and Indian blood in her veins and who also traces her roots to the Caribbean.
We ought, in my view, to celebrate her as the woman of colour who has scaled the highest peak in American politics and deserves to share a pedestal with other equally worthy predecessors like Condoleezza Rice.
Indeed, as part of the Black History month, we should take time to re-evaluate the place of people of colour in the Trump administration because, in my view, African-Americans, irrespective of their shades, have been handed the short end of the political stick. There is, so far, no man or woman of colour in the Trump Cabinet.
With the exception of Elon Musk, who has been handed a poisoned chalice, there is no high-ranking African-American in any of the key appointive positions in the Trump government, and for a race that had made so much progress under the administrations of both Obama and Biden, “blacks” have been terribly short-changed by the current administration despite their support for President Trump at the ballot, which, ironically came at the expense of their own daughter, Harris.
One of the shifts that need to happen is for “African Americans” to come to terms with the reality that that identity has morphed and is no longer the preserve of the descendants of slaves. It is, and ought to be claimed, by descendants of men and women of colour who were driven to the US by the demands of labour.
Once this sinks in, the idea of deporting immigrants of a few decades or years ago should be mainstreamed as an injustice against all people of colour, including the African American Diaspora. Power is shifting. The control of the instruments that create wealth is shifting.
African American of all shades and persuasions ought, therefore, to forget tears them asunder and find commonalities that will position them at the high table of politics and capitalism.
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